catured me under all my difficulties."

"_Si, si,_" broke she in at this; for, with a wonderful acuteness,
she could trace something of a speaker's meaning where every word was
unknown to her. As she spoke, she arose, and fled down the garden at top
speed.

"Why has she gone? Is she displeased at your telling me all these things
about her?" asked I.

"Scarcely that; she loves to be noticed. Nothing really seems to pain
her so much as when she is passed over unremarked. When such an event
would occur in the circus, I have seen her sob through her sleep all the
night after. I half suspect now she is piqued at the little notice you
have bestowed upon her. All the better if it be so."

"But here she comes again."

With the same speed she now came back to us, holding her slate over her
head, and showing that she rightly interpreted what the old man had said
of her.

"Now for my turn!" said Vaterchen, with a smile. "She is never weary of
drawing me in every absurd and impossible posture."

"What is it to be, Tintefleck?" asked he. "How am I to figure this
time?"

She shook her head without replying, and, making a sign that she was
not to be questioned or interrupted, she nestled down at the foot of the
fig-tree, and began to draw.

The old man now drew near me, and proceeded to give me further details
of her strange temper and ways. I could mark that throughout all he
said a tone of intense anxiety and care prevailed, and that he felt her
disposition was exactly that which exposed her to the greatest perils
for her future. There was a young artist who used to follow her through
all the South Tyrol, affecting to be madly in love with her, but of
whose sincerity and honor Vaterchen professed to have great misgivings.
He gave her lessons in drawing, and, what was less to be liked, he made
several studies of herself. "The artless way," said the old man, "she
would come and repeat to me all his raptures about her, was at first a
sort of comfort to me. I felt reassured by her confidence, and also by
the little impression his praises seemed to make, but I saw later
on that I was mistaken. She grew each day more covetous of these
flatteries, and it was no longer laughingly, but in earnest seriousness,
she would tell me that the 'Fornarina' in some gallery had not such eyes
as hers, and that some great statue that all the world admired was far
inferior to her in shape. If I had dared to rebuke her vanity, or to
ridicule he